A couple of interesting extracts then the link. Ike

TGR: Do you think there will be more deals out there this year than in the last few years?

CO: Prior to Bernanke's announcement of QE3, the market for financing had dried up and the small guys were in a very tough position. But in the last couple of months, we have started to see the market open up. Usually, it goes to the mid caps first and slowly starts to trickle down to the small caps. Barring any disasters out of Europe, I would hope to see this trend continue.

TGR: Those would be the two main tipping points—valuations and increases in dividends?

CO: There are other things out there, including mergers and acquisitions (M&A). A number of M&A transactions have occurred during the last couple of months. There has been a lot of commentary and interest by some of the senior folks at gold companies about the attractive valuations of gold and precious metals companies. There also seems to be buying coming out of Asia.

TGR: What's behind the Asian buying? Do you think we will see more of that?

CO: There have been a number of transactions recently. I'd highlight Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd.'s acquisition of Norton Gold Fields Ltd. (NGF:ASX) and Shandong Gold International Mining Corp. Ltd. taking an interest in Focus Minerals Ltd. (FML:ASX).

"Equities have underperformed the gold price for the last couple of years and are trading at some of the cheapest valuations of this decade."

In talking with a number of gold companies, it appears that the Asian groups have been showing a significant, increasing interest in taking stakes or complete ownership in materials and precious metal companies.

It almost makes me wonder if there has been a call from the top for people to start redeploying fiat paper currency into hard assets. That would run into my thesis that a lot of countries are shunning paper assets because they're being debased by all this printing and, hence, moving into hard assets is a very logical thing to do. It would not be at all surprising to hear that Asian groups, and other countries for that matter, are trying to move away from paper assets and into hard assets.

TGR: How does Asian buying play into your gold price forecast?

CO: There should be a lot of conversion out of paper money into hard assets, including gold and gold companies. Many of the statistics out there show that over the last decade, entities, including governments and individuals, have shifted from being net sellers of real assets to playing the role of considerable buyers of hard assets and gold.

The governments of the world were selling about 500 tons (t) gold per year a decade ago. Mine production was around 2,800 t/year, so that was a fairly significant impact upon the market. Today, governments of the world are buying about 500 t. That's nearly a 1,000 ton (Kt) shift in a market that has mine production of 2,800 t. That's an absolutely huge number.

"We have increased the weighting of silver stocks quite dramatically during the last couple of years."

And that's just by the governments. There's a huge proliferation of coin and mint sales and exchange-traded funds for individuals. There's a huge increase in consumer demand in China. The Chinese consumer has gone from owning no precious metals about a decade ago to approaching the same levels as India, which is one of the largest consumers of gold.

http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/14628